This close-up view shows lots of atmospheric detail, including a dark
storm and wisps of clouds. The dark spot is noticeably lighter around its
perimeter than in its interior.
The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on
Sept. 10, 2004, at a distance of 8.8 million kilometers (5.5 million
miles) from Saturn, through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared
light centered at 750 nanometers. The image scale is 52 kilometers (32
miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast enhanced to improve
visibility of features in the atmosphere.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras, were
designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at
the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit,
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page,
http://ciclops.org.